Out
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: It’s over. He’s out and she can’t force him back in..."


**A/N:** My first GG fan fic. Kinda like a stream of thought. Spoilers to tonights epi.

She runs around town trying to find him, asking those she's run into if they've seen him. Everyone gives her the same answer, with the wide eyes, and pitiful glances and gentle tones like she'll break at a moments notice. She breathes in deeply and makes her way around, trying to keep her fear at bay. Everything will be fine, she thinks, I'll explain, he'll listen, we'll talk it over. Everything will be fine. She walks and tries to catch the pieces as they slip through her fingers.

* * *

She glares at her clock and then at her phone. Seven hours, fourteen minutes. Wasn't that enough time? How much time did a man need? It was a simple enough situation, wasn't it? Her mother was Satan, Chris was insane, and she lo— was all in.

Seven hours, sixteen minutes.

* * *

Blue and pink, the town is divided by blue bows and pink ribbons, proclaiming in their childlike hues something she tried so hard to prevent (or was it ignore?). She tries not to cry as Taylor stares from the checkout counter and she tries to pull herself together as she walks out of the store. Blue and pink, everywhere she looks, blue and pink. For some reason she thinks of baby blankets, and little booties, the sort she'd never really gotten Rory. She walks back to her house, her hands shaking so bad she almost can't slide the key into the lock. She looks at the Huppah in her lawn and thinks of a wedding dress that makes her feel safe.

* * *

She lies in her bed, huddled in the dark quiet beneath her blankets, head pounding, eyes watering, heart hurting. It's over. He's out and she can't force him back in. She lies there and blames Emily for pushing Chris in between them, blames Chris for saying all those stupid things, blames all of Stars Hallows for wearing those stupid ribbons.

She blames herself for hiding it from him.

She hears the door open and lets herself hope it's him.

* * *

Rory lies down besides her, stroking her hair, wiping her face. She doesn't think she's ever loved her daughter so much and feels guilty for thinking that. She tells her what she wants to hear, that he'll be back, that he won't let her go. She falls short of saying the one thing Luke and her never got around to saying. She falls asleep her daughter's hand clutched in her own.

* * *

She dreams in black and white, like a grainy film playing out her mistakes. She opens her mouth, begging herself to say something, anything, to reassure him that she'll be as there for him as he is for her, as though fixing the dream will make a difference in her reality. When she wakes Rory's gone, still out on her errand, and she lies in bed alone. She reaches over to what she silently referred to as his side of the bed and closes her eyes...

Her next dream is different, a memory more than anything. She wakes up from that one feeling worst than before.

* * *

She sits in bed, eating her sixth bowl of cereal. Rory has been gone for three hours, and her room is a battlefield of junk food and things that are meant to comfort her. She gets up, her legs wobbling for a moment, her stomach lurching, and walks towards the closet, pulling out a near empty box. She begins poking around in the mess of cookie dough and Gatorade picking up the things he gave to her, things they shared. She finds the flannel shirt tucked in one of her drawers and lowers it into the box. Then the earrings, the necklace, the Hello Kitty band aids he picked up for her the time she tried to cook and ended up almost slicing her finger off ('Please, you barely nicked it.' 'I'm bleeding out here.' 'Fine I'll get you a band aid…' 'I don't have any.' A sigh. 'I'll be right back. Stay away from the knife.' He was back in seven minutes. ) And just when she's sure she's gathered every last bit of him, she makes her way back to the closest, only to pull everything back out.

She can't bring herself to hide him away in a box at the back of her closest.

* * *

She can't stop thinking about how much of an idiot she is as she walks down the dark streets towards the diner. How much more pathetic could she be? It had seemed reasonable enough when the phone had been in her had and she was rambling on about putting books away. He was still Luke after all, and if she asked him enough times, he'd do anything for her (so had she simply not asked him to hear her out enough? And if she asked him enough would he take her back. And if she waited nine hours and twelve minutes before finally calling it a night, would he change his mind and kiss her forehead and crawl under her blankets and call her crazy?), he'd done it a million times before, hadn't he? Bid on her excuse for a basket, filled with only two stale pop tarts and old beef jerky (he'd always known her too well), he'd saved her from being pathetic-pathetic then, and now she's gone and brought the double pathetic down on herself.

She reaches for the key and hopes he's not there.

* * *

She feels exhausted as she drags her feet up the stairs. She'd walked through the cold night to get that tape back and just handed it to him on her lawn. She sits on her bed, pulling the blankets over her, hand reaching for the flannel shirt under the pillow. She blinks, amazed that her eyes are still dry (maybe she's already cried out all her tears).

She thinks for a moment that she saw some hurt in his eyes when she sent him back to the diner, something like regret, something resembling what she is feeling.

She lies back on the pillows, the voices of late night T.V. floating around her, the smell of chips in her nose.

She wonders if he would have stayed and lied next to her if she'd asked.

**The End**


End file.
